Autonomous, power-dictated message routing for multi-hop mesh network outage communications

Methods and devices for facilitating communications in an ad-hoc multi-hop wireless network during outage conditions are described herein. In one exemplary embodiment, an initiating device attempts to send a communication to a target destination by first sending a synchronization request to an intermediate device using a unicast transmission. If the initiating device determines that the first synchronization request failed, a second synchronization request is sent to any potential candidate device neighbors using an anycast transmission protocol. The initiating device receives an acknowledgment message from at least one of those devices. The transmission of acknowledgment messages by potential candidate responders are prioritized in a self-organizing manner relating to priority indicator information conveyed in the anycast transmission. The acknowledgment message indicates that a device has accepted the anycast synchronization request and, after synchronizing with that device, the initiating device sends a communication to the destination via the responding device using a unicast transmission protocol.